Charles Alvin Beckwith

Charles Alvin "Chargin' Charlie" Beckwith (22 January 1929-13 June 1994) was a US Army special forces colonel during the Vietnam War.

Biography
Charles Alvin Beckwith was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929, and he turned down a career with the Green Bay Packers in 1950 to join the US Army, being commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1952. He served in the Korean War before joining the special forces in 1958, and he deployed to Laos in 1960 during the Laotian Civil War. In 1962, he was sent as an exchange officer to the British SAS, fighting in the Malayan Emergency in Malaya. Inspired by his SAS experiences, Beckwith helped to form the modern Green Berets as an SAS-like fighting force in the US military, capable of fighting in unconventional warfare. In 1965, he was deployed to Vietnam, and he served as a Major at the Siege of Plei Me, successfully defending the base from the first of two North Vietnamese attacks on the Ia Drang Valley that year. He took a .50 caliber bullet through the abdomen in early 1966, but he made a full recovery and returned to Vietnam after the Tet Offensive in 1968. In 1975, he was promoted to Colonel, and he co-founded Delta Force in 1977, leading Operation Eagle Claw in 1980. He retired from the Army due to his disappointment with Eagle Claw, and he died in Austin, Texas in 1994 at the age of 65.